"This could even be the Drifts," said Fyfe.
"A trap?" said Quinn. "I've never heard of that before."
"No," said Mana. "I've been checking the records and I can't find any case of the Drifts trying anything like this but there's always a first time. We've never seen an armada anything like the size of this one before either."
"They'd be more likely to use a recognised code if it was a trap," said Fyfe. "They could get one from one of our ships they've recovered."
"Agreed," said Quinn.
"And actually use one of our ships they'd captured or built a replica of so we'd be less suspicious," added Mana. "But we can't really know how they'd think. They're aliens."
"Same thinking works both ways," said Quinn. "They don't really know our psychology. Sure this is kind of a mystery the way a ship we recognise wouldn't be, but they wouldn't necessarily know that means we felt the need to investigate it more. And, anyway, we could be overanalysing all this - maybe it is just a new type of ship we don't recognise. New types have appeared out of the blue from colonies before."
Mana paused. Quinn was right, as was Fyfe. But neither of them was in command. They had the right to endanger themselves but she was the one who would be giving the order.
Damn it.
"All right," she said. "We investigate."
18/12/214 (Adjusted Calendar)
"Did you know them all well?" asked May. "Your crew?"
"I barely knew Fyfe or Jaz, the other gunner at all, they were new to the Penny. Gun crews work together but they switch them between ships depending on what weapon they need a ship to carry."
"What about your captain?"
"I'd been on the Penny with Captain Gold for two years, the same as Quinn. I'd served with Quinn on a ship previously, the Erich Maria Remarque."
"How well did you know him? Better than the others?"
"Yes. A bit too well for me."
"How so?"
"We slept together once. Not one of my better decisions."
"No?"
"No. There was a lot of alcohol involved. I wouldn't have done it if I’d been thinking straight. You shouldn't sleep with someone you serve with. It confuses things."
"And you like things simple?" May asked.
"Just not overly complicated. I made sure I didn't do it again."
"You dream about him, though. Not about any of the others?"
Mana paused for a moment. "Fair point," she said quietly.
20/09/209 (Adjusted Calendar)
The ship looked bigger than Mana had visualised it from the readings available. The configuration was one she had never seen before; a dark grey conical body with what she took to be one visible engine attached to the round base end. If she hadn't known better she would have guessed it was designed for aesthetics as much as functionality. The hull was punctured with jagged edged holes of varying sizes: it looked like the results of a Drift fragmentation mine. The overall effect was of a pointed metal wizard's hat which had seen better days though Mana found herself questioning whether the name of the vessel, displayed in light grey lettering on the hull, was influencing her thoughts: Merlin's Wake. She was too tired for all this.
A thick silvery line now linked the two ships (the harpoon expertly launched and secured by Fyfe on the first attempt) which were now less than two hundred metres apart. Mana would have liked to be in a little closer but there was no telling the full damage or dangers of the other ship. Where there was one mine there were likely to be others and since she did not know how far the Merlin's Wake had drifted since sustaining its damage Mana would rather be well away from this part of space. She had already had to compromise between keeping their distance and getting in close enough to fire a line across and let Fyfe go across in a suit, taking another safety line across with him.
Nineteen minutes ago he had entered through one of the larger breaches in the hull. There had been nothing from him since: the ship seemed to be generating communications interference, maybe from some system that was still operating aboard.
"Any sign of him?" asked Quinn through the intercom. He was stationed at the Penny's main airlock, checking the line.
"Not yet. We'll give him a few minutes more. How does it look from your viewpoint?"
"Don't see any activity. Engines and retros don't seem to be firing. Looks like it's just drifting. Still doesn't look like anything I've ever seen."
"Nor me. What do you make of that structure mounted on the base of the bottom rim?"
"Don't recognise it, either. Could be a mine or satellite for deployment. There's at least two other empty housings on the rim I can see."
Mana had been hoping Quinn wouldn't use the term "mine" but it had been her first thought as well. What was this thing - some kind of scout or minesweeper? It had to be new. Something secret?
"Do you want me to get suited up in case I need to go across?" Quinn interrupted her train of thought.
"No. I should be next over. You need to keep the ship functioning."
"And you're the pilot," Quinn suddenly broke off: "There he is!"
"I see him."
The suited figure of Fyfe appeared in the hull breach, half hidden in the pitch black shadow of the ship's interior. He waved across to them and Mana suddenly heard his broken voice through the radio interference.
"... Found someone... Need them across now..."
As she watched, Fyfe emerged from the shadow, pulling another suited figure behind him, floating weightless.
"You see that?" said Quinn.
"I do."
"Well?"
"Is the second line secure?"
"It's fine."
"Okay then." Mana made the decision. "Bring them both on board."
18/12/214 (Adjusted Calendar)
"So you found someone?" said May.
"We did. Classic successful EVA rescue and recovery procedure. Trust me, that's rare."
"I'll believe it. Who did you rescue?"
"He was called Falcon, he was the captain of the Merlin's Wake, or so he claimed. There had been five in his crew but they had attracted a Drift mine and the blast had killed the other four and left him badly injured. We didn't have facilities let alone the expertise to save him."
"So he died?"
"Yes. About five hours after we brought him onboard."
"How do you feel about that?"
"We're at war," Mana said, repeating a phrase she had heard variations of throughout almost her entire life. "These things happen."
"Was he able to say much before he died?"
"Yes," said Mana. "We pumped him full of painkillers and he was able to talk to us. Actually he was desperate to talk to us."
"About what?"
"His ship's payload. They had been carrying five devices he said would provide us with some protection against the Drifts."
"Some kind of weapon?"
"Kind of. More like a camouflage device, something that would stop the Drifts detecting any more human colonies."
"How?"
"That's a bit technical. But he said they had started off with five of them and were delivering them to colonies the Drifts hadn't found yet. They had just arrived at Pentad Reach and deployed the fourth one when the Drift armada attacked."
"He was too late then."
"He didn't seem to think so. He said we had inflicted serious damage on their fleet with a counter-attack and it would take them decades to fully recover. Obviously he was a lot better informed than we were. We'd lost contact with our command days before. . Falcon also said he had information about the Drifts. He said they were dying – as a race, I mean. There was some kind of disease spreading among them, slowly killing them and making them infertile. He said that might be why they were fighting – some kind of mass insanity they had. It all sounded a bit incredible, to be honest.”
"You didn't believe him, then?"
"Not at first."
; "But later?"
"Later," Mana continued, "when we took a second look at his ship we found some devices we didn't recognise. Obviously some kind of new technologies - Quinn was almost totally lost with them and he was a damn good engineer. Wherever Falcon came from – and he didn’t say which colony – he had better technology than us so maybe he had better enemy intelligence as well."
"What kind of devices were they? Our Fleet will be pretty keen to know."
"They will. The main thing was the remaining camouflage device - the thing on the hull. But there was a kind of new navigation system on board as well."
"Did you get a chance to examine them?"
"Better than that, we brought them on board. They're still up there with the Penny in orbit right now."
"So why did you bring them aboard?"
"Falcon was very insistent, not that there was anything he could do to make us agree to it. But I decided if there was any chance of using them against the Drifts it was our duty to return them to the fleet
"The navigation system's pretty small so we were able to float it into the hold's airlock and stow it there. The camouflage device was bigger, though, carried attached to the hull of the Merlin's Wake."
"So how did you get it on board?"
"The Penny's a transporter, remember? We jettisoned the disabled cannon - it was just dead weight anyway - and secured the camouflage device to the housing. It was while that was being finished that we lost Fyfe."
"What happened?"
"Something happened on the Merlin's Wake. Without warning it just exploded and sent a few tonnes of wreckage in our direction. Luckily the main thrust of the blast was away from us else it would have ripped Penny apart. We took plenty damage anyway, though.”
"Fyfe was outside at the time. We saw him hit by a piece of wreckage and sent flying. If the impact didn't kill him the damage to his suit would have pretty soon anyway. There was no way we could have attempted a rescue."
"And that left just the two of you," said May.
"Yes . Well, three for a little while until Falcon died. And catastrophic damage to the main engines and the generators. We were pretty screwed."
"So then what?"
25/09/209 (Adjusted Calendar)
"He's gone," said Quinn, covering Falcon's face.
Mana nodded. "I'm surprised he lasted as long as he did."
"So what now?"
"Well, we've got limited options. I think Pentad Reach is too risky and the last order we had was to retreat."
"Always carry out the last order?"
"Always. So we've got three options. We deploy the ramscoops and head for Terraquintus or Cinque Port or we abandon Penny altogether and take the skiff to Cinque Port. Either way we're in for a period in suspension."
"What do you want to go for?"
"I want to get the salvage back to the Fleet to at least try and save something from this mess so I'd prefer to use the ramscoops. Are they in a good enough condition?"
"There's no serious damage to them, we should be fine that way. The generators are a different matter, though. They've taken a serious hit but I think I can fix them to run to produce the minimum we need for long enough."
"Long enough for Cinque Port?"
"Yes. Or even Terraquintus."
Stress and grief fought with exasperation and annoyance and Mana had to gather herself to keep calm.
"Quinn... You are not taking the ramblings of a dying man seriously?"
"Granted he was dying, but I'd dispute that he was rambling. Everything he said made sense - on its own terms, I mean."
"If your terms happen to be born out of insanity. Quinn - he said he was from the future, dammit!" Mana stopped suddenly, realising she had been raising her voice on the last few words.
Quinn paused, letting her settle. "I know it sounds insane," he continued softly. "But half of what we do is insane. Travelling in space is insane."
"Maybe you're insane."
"Maybe - and that might explain a lot in my life. But you're a pilot, I don't need to tell you about time distortion linked to the speed we travel at. I left for one trip once the day after my niece was born. When I came back eleven months later she was five years old."
"That's all relativity effects. You're talking about travelling backwards in time, not just it passing more slowly for us. And you can't do that. And if we can't accept that part of his story then the rest of it doesn't stack up."
"Look, in a universe where aliens are trying to annihilate the human race for reasons that only the aliens can really understand, why is time travel so difficult an idea for you to at least consider?"
"Because it's ridiculous."
"No. Because it's new to us. Look, there are sections of those devices back there that I have no idea what they are or what they do. But some of the parts I do understand work so elegantly they must have been designed by some genius. Or someone with years more research and development than we have."
"Someone from the future, you mean?"
"Now you're getting it."
"Yes. I'm getting it."
"Seriously?"
"Yes. You are insane."
18/12/214 (Adjusted Calendar)
"So you decided to head here rather than Cinque Port?" May continued.
"Yes. As I've told your people already, we felt if this place hadn't been found by the Drifts yet and Falcon's camouflage device actually worked then this was the best place to deploy it. We still had the ramscoop as a last resort so we used it."
"I'm not too familiar with ramscoops. That's a way of powering a kind of last-ditch auxiliary engine, yes?"
"Kind of. Space isn't as empty as most people think. There's plenty of hydrogen and other gases around that you can use as fuel but it's spread really, ridiculously thinly. A ramscoop device generates a huge magnetic field to direct it towards the ship where it can be used to power an engine. You can kind of power yourself as you go."
"And you used that to get here?"
"Yes, there was damage of course, but Quinn is - he was - a great engineer in his own way. He got it working. He just didn't tell me he wouldn't be going with me."
"You miss him. Don't you?"
"Let's just say," Mana said after a pause, "that maybe sometimes you don't realise quite what you've got while you have it."
"How so?"
21/12/214 (Adjusted Calendar)
"You okay about heading in first?" asked Commander Halpern through the suit's comlink. "One of us could go ahead and you can follow right after."
"I'm fine," Mana replied. "There shouldn't be any hazards but I know Penny."
"As you want. This is your territory."
It was great to be back in space, even if it she had only spent a few days on the ground. And it was great to see the Penny again, even as battered as she was, growing to meet them as they had ridden up to meet her in orbit on board one of Terraquintus’ somewhat basic launch vehicles.
May had passed her fit to fly after the last session. They had spent the end of it talking about how she felt about Quinn. That she had probably loved him - okay she did love him, or had loved him - even if she hadn't admitted it to herself. There had been a lot of talk. There had been a couple of tears shed. And she did feel better. Even if she was still having the dreams about the little girl with his eyes.
Halpern touched the control to open the hatch. The iris sections slid back to reveal the narrow umbilical corridor spanning the several metres of space to the Penny's corresponding hatch.
"Here I go," said Mana, kicking off and floating through the opening. "Give me a few minutes once I get the other side open."
"Understood."
The launcher's hatch closed behind her: a safety precaution until the state of the Penny was confirmed. Mana glided along it, using the handles set into the walls and stopped at the far hatch. Grabbing the main handle, she released it and it swung open for her.
"Am inside," she said, stepping through. "Wait for my signal to follow."
"Copy that."
Okay, she thought, just need a few minutes to get to the hold.
The lights were off and now the Penny wasn't spinning everything was weightless in the orbital freefall, but Mana knew every centimetre of her ship. It took her three minutes by her helmet's lamps to get to the hold and Falcon's second device.
It was a large, cylindrical device with a concave section big enough for someone to stand in. Blinking at her from the curved wall of that section were a number of screens and control panels. Mana guided herself to it, took a moment to check she had what she thought was the right one and tapped in a command.
For a second, nothing happened and then the entire structure of the Penelope Weaving was shaken violently as - on the outside of the ship - Falcon's camouflage device separated from its housing and began floating free.
"Mana!" Halpern was shouting. "What's happened?"
"Has the device separated from the hull?" she replied calmly.
There was a pause. "Yes. Was that you?"
"It was."
"Why? What are you doing?
"Saving your skin, Commander. Good luck to you all for the future."
"What?"
Outside, the device began firing a series of retro rockets, orientating itself towards Terraquintus' sun. Its main engine fired gently, moving it away from the Penny before engaging fully and accelerating away, towards the far-off star.
"What are you doing?" Halpern was practically screaming at her now. "We're coming across. I order you to meet us at the hatch!"
Mana switched him off and turned her attention to another panel. Waypoint five Quinn had said...
03/01/215 (Adjusted Calendar)
May's note-taker was playing up again. Almost all devices were playing up since the sunstorms had started. There was an urgent programme in place to add shielding to the affected equipment, starting with the most vital which did not, it seemed, include hers.
She sat, gathering her thoughts as the device reset itself. It struck her that it was this patient's actions that might well be delaying her own notes being closed off. There was no direct evidence that it was the device launched from the Penelope Weaving that had caused the sudden radical increase in solar activity several days later but, given what Mana had stated about the camouflage device, May was inclined to believe it.